Resonance Read Online Free PDF Page A

shadows, praying he was hidden by the line of parked cars. There was an alley up ahead, a footpath between the houses, too narrow for cars. If he reached it the car couldn't follow. By the time the car had driven around the block Graham would be gone.
    Unless the driver stopped.
    And followed on foot.
    Graham ducked into the alley, praying his exit had been obscured in the shadows, praying never to hear the squeal of brakes. The car flew past. Graham ran. A deep darkness descended as the alley curved between high wooden fences. It snaked left then right. Light appeared, the distant glow of shops from the High Street about two hundred yards up ahead.
    Still no sound of brakes.
    A moment's optimism soon smothered. People want you dead .
    He ran faster. The lights of the High Street drawing him onward. He'd be safe there. There'd be people: witnesses, passing traffic, police cars. The alley opened onto a cul-de-sac; more lines of cars and houses in darkness. He pounded along the pavement, the lights of the High Street bouncing closer, he could see them through the film of water that covered his eyes. Pain was everywhere: his lungs, his chest, his legs. His nose ran and his head hurt. But he kept running.
    People want you dead . The High Street grew ahead of him, the shops, the lights, the faint noise of traffic. He was nearly there. A girl sat in a shop doorway opposite, a girl with bright orange hair. He was running towards her. She stood up, waved. He was crossing the road, barely glancing right or left.
    "In here!"
    She pointed to a huge cardboard box at the back of the doorway. Her hands began to fold back the flaps at the mouth of the box.
    "Come on! Inside."
    He could see the darkness within, bright lights all around, safety beckoning; could he trust her, was it a trap? Before he could answer he was diving, full length, hitting the marble tiles of the doorway on his hands and knees and sliding, scurrying across the cardboard flaps and into the blackness beyond. The flaps closed behind him, darkness descended and all around was the lingering smell of stale sweat.
     

Four
    Blackness, breaths coming fast, chest heaving, hands shaking, leg tapping. His world contracted into a few cubic meters, he sat, hunched over, knees drawn up, hands locked around them, head bowed, hair brushing against the roof of the box.
    Fear.
    Stark and raw.
    People want you dead.   
    Words whispered in the black of night. People . . . Dead . . . Want you .
    The words wouldn't go away. He rocked back and forth, closed his ears, pulled his world in tighter and tighter. No one else existed. Just him, the box and the night.
    And the sound of a car coming closer and closer.
    No! He clamped his hands to his ears and rocked faster, his hair swishing against the cardboard roof.
    The car kept coming, its engine whining through the gears—first, second, third—louder and louder. A roar, a squeal of brakes, the car thrown into reverse, another squeal of brakes.
    "You see a man run this way?"
    "Yeah," said the girl. "He ran down there."
    The car pulled away, screeching, whining, roaring into the distance. Graham held his breath—three, four, five seconds—the car kept going, quieter and quieter. Breathe and pray, count and hope. Six, seven, another squeal. Brakes? Panic welling. The car accelerating again, its sound muffling. It must have turned a corner, taken the left fork at the top of the High Street. Eleven, twelve . . .
    "He's gone," said the girl. "You're safe now."
    A scrabbling noise came from the far end of the box. Graham looked up and blinked at the sudden influx of light as the girl drew back the flaps. Her face appeared, tilted to one side, framed in light from the shops, her hair falling over one cheek. She smiled and held out a hand.
    "Hi, I'm Annalise, Annalise Mercado, and you'd better be Graham Smith."
    He took her hand nervously, forced a smile and nodded a thank you.
    "I know about the not-talking thing, that's cool."
    A car engine